Prick, Prod, Palpate!

Poor Ethan. The boy has had numerous doctor visits over the past couple of weeks. It started last week with a trip back to the pediatrician when he woke up with an awful cough - this was following the high fever he had had over the weekend. We gave Dr. Allardice a second chance and let's just say that was our last visit there. I was once again unimpressed. Ethan tested negative for strep after suffering through a throat swab. I was tempted to gag for him. :( I remember the dreaded throat culture from when I was younger and was never a fan! So, they determined he must have a virus - yipee!! :(

The next day we had an appointment set up with a new pediatrician that I had scheduled weeks ago. This time with Dr. Rajeev at Kid Station Pediatrics. This appointment went much better and I was much happier with her. She was very personable and didn't try to rush through our appointment at all. She was also very thorough and I felt much better about choosing her to be Ethan's new pediatrician.

On Friday we had yet another appointment scheduled. This time a hearing test with an audiologist at the local hospital. Dr. Allardice had referred us (due to Ethan not really talking much yet) and we decided to go ahead and do it even though we didn't think that Ethan was suffering any sort of hearing loss. Not a fun appointment. Unfortunately we were scheduled with a nazi audiologist who made the appointment quite miserable. Ethan passed all of her tests with flying colors though! Good to know that he can definitely hear everything we're saying, even though he consciously chooses to ignore us sometimes. ;) Can't wait for those teen years! haha!

Next stop - allergist. This Thursday we were set up to see Dr. Cartwright, a pediatric allergist in town. I assumed they would just do a blood test given the fact that Ethan is still so young. I was wrong. Poor guy had to endure a skin prick test on his tiny little back! :'( It was hard for me to watch as I held him on my lap. Fortunately she got through them all fairly quickly, then the waiting game began. We worked on words and body parts as the clock ticked down and luckily he stayed occupied for the duration of the testing. Good news once again - as of now, he has not yet inherited any of my horrible allergies! :) That doesn't mean that he won't in the future, but we do know that he is good for now. The doctor was still concerned by the fact that he is a mouth breather and that he snores sometimes. So, he wants him to go get an x-ray of his head/neck to evaluate his adenoids. That should be fun! Hopefully all is well with that too, but we will wait and see what the x-ray shows.

So, poor Ethan has been pricked, prodded and palpated these past couple of weeks. Hopefully he'll get a break for awhile now! At least he has maintained his easy-going attitude most of the time. Tonight my little sweetheart picked me a flower while we were waiting to be seated for dinner and delivered it to me with a big hug! He is too cute!!!

Update 04.17.11...

This past Monday evening we went to the local hospital to get the x-ray of Ethan's adenoids and some routine bloodwork that his new pediatrician wanted done. I was unsure how all of this would go with a two-year-old, but fortunately Ethan is one tough little dude. Josh took Ethan in to the x-ray room to hold him while they got the necessary views (seeing as how x-rays and being pregnant don't go together, I got to wait in the hallway). Ethan did great! Josh reported that he seemed to be so fascinated with the x-ray machine doing it's thing that he was very content to sit still and watch it, making this part very easy! Yipee! :)

Next up, bloodwork at the lab. Hmm. I guess I thought there might be an easier way to take blood from a small child besides the typical draw from the arm that we adults endure, but I guess not. :( They tied the band to his upper arm tightly, trying to find a vein to use without much luck. His poor little skinny arms weren't showing much sign of anything good to use. :( After over 5 minutes of searching, the two lab techs finally decided to give it a go in his left arm. The stick and nothing...ugh. Then they proceeded to fish the needle around in there trying to find something. I wanted to cry. I know how awful it feels when they don't get the vein and they are desperately searching to get it. :( I wanted to beg them to stop, but they finally did. Of course by this point Ethan was in tears and I was thankful that Josh was again restraining him, as I am not sure I could have held him down! So they decided to give the other arm a try. The other tech tried this time and fortunately was able to find a vein right away. The bottle quickly filled and then we were done. Whew! Not an experience I want to have to do again anytime soon! Luckily, Ethan quickly recovered and was all smiles as he proudly showed off the loot he scored (a Thomas sticker from radiology and a stuffed turtle from the lab) later when we were home again.

I was surprised to get a call from his allergist the very next day with the results of his x-ray. Turns out his adenoids are slightly enlarged, but not enough to talk about an ENT referral or surgery. So, that was good news! After all of the testing, it appears we have a 100% healthy and happy little boy on our hands. Yay! :) He is starting to say more and more in just the past few weeks, so it seems it was just taking him a little more time than average to get started is all. His current favorite word is "pizza," and he likes to call anything he loves "pizza." He must really love pizza!! haha! Other favorite words are "cookie" and "cheese." Hmm...I am seeing a theme here...He is also getting very good with the alphabet! Our smart little guy can identify all of his letters now (I will say a random letter and he will point it out in a book/magazine/shirt or pick it out of his foam bath tub letters) and is getting much better at saying all of them too. Here he is in the tub the other day, very proud as he said "W"! This one doesn't sound too close yet, but it is super cute how he says it! ;)

He also enjoys brushing his own teeth and tongue, though we definitely still need to help him out with this one...

I think he is finally catching on to this whole baby thing too. Now when he sees a picture of a baby, he'll point at my tummy, repeat "baby" after I say it, then give my tummy a kiss! :) Love it! I think he may be ready to be a big brother now!!

Veggie Delight!

Tonight I decided to try a couple of new items for dinner. My lovely sister sent me a Weight Watchers recipe that she had tried (and loved) for spinach quinoa. Living in the South now, it is probably a crime that I had not yet attempted to make fried squash. Down here you can pretty much fry anything I have come to realize. We tried butternut squash in the fall for the first time, so tonight we tried yellow squash! :) No dinner fails this evening - we had a delicious spread of panko-crusted baked chicken, spinach quinoa and fried squash. It ended up being quite labor intensive to make all three, but was worth it in the end.

I gathered the items I needed for the spinach quinoa and went to work.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa (pre-rinsed)
• 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 cups spinach, baby leaves, packed, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

• Heat oil in a large, nonstick skillet, over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until onion is tender, about 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add quinoa to skillet; cook, stirring frequently, until quinoa starts to turn golden brown, about 2 minutes.
• Add broth, black pepper and red pepper flakes to skillet; bring to boil. Cover skillet and reduce heat to low and simmer for 13 minutes; stir in spinach. Cover skillet and cook until spinach and quinoa are tender and liquid is absorbed, about 3 to 5 minutes; season with salt. Yields about 1/2 cup per serving.

As for changes I made to the ingredients/recipe...I used just 1/2 of a large onion because that seemed like plenty to me and I used 2 cloves of garlic because I really like garlic. :) I also used just 3 cups of spinach because I felt like that was a lot of spinach. I followed the directions exactly and it seemed to work well. It yielded a very large batch, so plenty of leftovers for lunches!

For the fried squash, I simply cut the yellow squash into about 1/4" thick medallions. I dipped them in egg, then a 1:1 ratio mixture of flour, corn muffin mix, salt and pepper. Here they are after being dipped, ready to fry at this point.

I used canola oil on medium heat and fried them for about 2-3 minutes on each side. Here is a picture of the finished products on the plate! :) While the squash was tasty, we try not to eat too many fried foods, so this may just be an occasional treat from now on. The quinoa will probably make it into the regular rotation when I want to do something besides brown rice. I was bummed that the cold I currently have skewed my taste buds a bit tonight and I needed to add more salt than normal to really taste everything, but the quinoa did have great flavor!

Unfortunately Ethan wasn't too interested in trying the quinoa, but did sample the squash and gobbled up the chicken tonight! With his belly full and a much too large hat Josh brought home from work on his head, he was all smiles this evening!

My Loves

Had to share the picture I captured of my loves tonight! :) I can't believe I was lucky enough to get one with all of them looking at the camera! Yay!!

And one more, for good measure, of me with my favorite little guy! :) 25.5 weeks here and growing bigger each week now!!